Food is often consumed in portions produced considerably before being eaten and, therefore, subject to being contaminated meanwhile, as from human and animal carriers of potentially harmful microbes. Everyone who has ever received food portions in a cafeteria, diner, delicatessen, or under outdoor picnic or field-kitchen conditions risked becoming infected by ingesting food contaminated by harmful micro-organisms, mainly bacteria, but perhaps fungi and/or viruses.
Away from their preparation environment, food portions may well enter less controlled environments and suffer surface contamination. Accordingly, each individual food portion may pose a health hazard meriting individual attention meriting a surface-sanitizing effort.
Food portions, even if prepared and served up in a super-clean manner, may encounter microbe-bearing liquid or solid particulates in the ambient atmosphere, as from air-conditioning systems, or from normal human respiration, or from abnormal coughing or sneezing, for example, or accidental contact with animals, such as pets--or pests.
An effective sanitizing composition, conveniently applicable to food portions, could help to preserve a good existing level of food portion sanitation, or could even restore a satisfactorily sanitary surface of exposed food portions by the time for their ingestion.
This particular situation is distinguishable from more general sanitation/sterilization of bulk foods and of food utensils, which have received attention reflected in such U.S. Pat. No. 3,908,031 (1975) Ethanol Vapor Sterilization of Natural Spices and Other Foods (also fruits, grains, hydrogenated fats); U.S. Pat. No. 4,592,892 (1986) Aqueous Sterilizing Agents for Foods or Food Processing Machines and Utensils (aqueous solutions of ethanol, alkali carbonate, and trialkali phosphate); U.S. Pat. No. 4,977,142 (1990) Antiallergenic Agent (aqueous tannic acid, ethanol, benzyl alcohol against dust mites, plant allergens); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,611,939 (1997) for Methods for Inhibiting the Production of Slime in Aqueous systems (tannin plus a cationic monomer)--citing a number of literature references, including Antimicrobial Properties of Tannins, Scalbert, PHYTOCHEMISTRY, vol. 30, no. 12, 3875-3883 (1991); Toxicity of Tannin Compounds to Microorganisms, Field, in PLANT POLYPHENOLS, Hemingway, ed. 673-692 (1992).
The present effort is directed to surface sanitizing individual food portions, as at the site of their prospective ingestion.